In recent years, as new traffic systems except for buses and railways, new transit systems have attracted attention. As one type of the new transit systems, a system is known in which a vehicle having rubber wheels as running wheels automatically travels on a track (Automated People Mover, Automated Transit Systems).
This type of new transit system is roughly made of: a vehicle having a vehicle body, rubber tires, electric motors, and guide wheels; running surfaces along which the rubber tires roll; a contact line that supplies electric power to the electric motors; and guide rails. The new transit system supplies electric power from the contact line to the electric motors and rotates the rubber tires through drive of the electric motors, to thereby travel the vehicle along the track.
In this type of new transit system, the vehicle itself does not typically include a mechanism of actively controlling the direction of rolling of the rubber tires, but includes only two guide wheels that are attached to both sides of the lower portion of the vehicle in the width direction so as to protrude in the substantially horizontal direction. Two guide rails, which are attached to both sides of the track in the width direction along the running direction of the track so as to face the guide wheels, are brought into contact with the corresponding guide wheels, to thereby restrict the rolling direction of the rubber tires, allowing the vehicle to travel along the track (for example, see Non-Patent Document 1 and Non-Patent Document 2).